George Waud, a film producer whose credits include Snakes on a Plane and the award-winning revival of Cabaret, is not a typical owner of the second favourite for the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. His colt Maltese Cross will take on runners from racing's superpowers this weekend. "No," he said this week, three days out from the most prestigious and valuable race of the European season. "And for that reason, I'm making the most of it."
From Hollywood to the Bois de Boulogne
The backstory that has led Waud to the Bois de Boulogne on the first Sunday in October started in London, includes 23 years in Los Angeles as he worked his way up from the bottom rung of the movie industry, and more recently, a co-producer role on the award-winning revival of Cabaret in London's West End. From the day in the 1970s when Waud took a trip to Newmarket with his mother, racing has been a thread in the fabric.
"As a child, my mother was married to a man who made trophies," he says, "and a lot of his clients came from racing, so they went racing a lot. I probably went racing for the first time when I was six or seven years old and there was just something about it I really, really liked."
From Script Reader to Film Producer
The flame was rekindled when, in his mid-20s, Waud moved to California to try to get a foothold in the movies. "I was working for a TV production company in Soho," he says, "but I really wanted to work in the movie business and there weren't a lot of prospects in London in the early '90s."
"There were a lot of people arriving in Hollywood with dreams, but there was also a lot of work going around, and the attitude of the people who were working in the industry was very, very helpful. Nobody was precious about their job because there was a lot on offer, so people tended to be a lot more helpful than they were over here at that time."
"So I started at the bottom as a reader. I read scripts and analysed scripts, and slowly worked my way up to the point where I had someone reading the scripts for me. And there was this wonderful racecourse down the road called Hollywood Park. It's gone now [demolished to make way for So-Fi Stadium] but we used to go nearly every weekend during the season and it was just really, really good fun."
A day at the races was a welcome release from the ferocious Hollywood work ethic – "I got 10 days off a year and used that to come home to see my parents," he says, "so I didn't really get a holiday for 20 years" – but a growing track record for backing winners in his day job allowed Waud to branch out into ownership.
"I was working at Paramount," he says, "and the guy I was working with asked me if I'd ever heard of The Italian Job. I almost fell off my chair, because like everybody else of my generation, we'd been suckled on The Italian Job every Christmas. 'Well, Paramount owns the remake rights. Do you think we should do it?' I said, 'absolutely', and we did, and it turned out really well.
"Then after I moved to work for New Line Cinema, I was given a large box of scripts that they owned the rights to. They wanted to know which ones I'd be interested in, and I was just drawn to Snakes On A Plane by the title. It was the first script I'd read that actually said what it was on the tin, and possibly the first one since Singin' in the Rain."
The title also appealed to Samuel L Jackson, who signed up to play the lead without reading the script, and the combination of an A-lister and a plot involving hundreds of deadly snakes let loose on a passenger jet in mid-air was an internet sensation in the early days of social media.
"It was the first film that attracted a relationship with the audience through the internet. People were making their own merchandise, which is a big no-no normally. Most studios would shut people for making merchandise and selling it, but we took a different view and encouraged them. It all became part of a new way to market a film."
Maltese Cross's Rise
It was around the time of Snakes On A Plane's release that Waud took a share in a two-year-old called Society's Chairman. He did not race at two, three or four but then repaid his owner's patience with a series of classy performances at Group-race level which culminated in a run in the Breeders' Cup Mile in 2010.
Waud's good fortune in the bloodstock markets has continued since his return to the UK in 2014, thanks in no small part to the efforts of Sam Haggas, the bloodstock agent who buys all his horses and is also the son of Maltese Cross's trainer, William.
Already this year, he has scaled the heights of a second-place finish in the Derby from the worst of the draw, and a narrow win in the Group One Grand Prix de Paris – over the Arc's track and trip – despite a troubled run in the straight that makes him a major player in Sunday's showpiece.
"Tom Marquand [Maltese Cross's jockey] had always felt that he had another gear, but just hadn't felt him go into it," Waud says. "The ground he covered in a very short space of time was unbelievable. It was like someone had paused the video, picked him up, moved him to the front, and then pressed play again. And then Tom got off him and said, 'I found the gear'.
"He has improved all year and we're still not sure where his ceiling is. I guess we're about to find out."
